Question of the Day

Did illegal voters swing any congressional races?

Reality, by George

In 1994, long before Monica Lewinsky and even Paula Jones related their sexual encounters with Bill Clinton, retired U.S. Navy Capt. George Vercessi of Alexandria wrote a novel.And while "We the People" has been available as a virtual book over 1stbooks.com, only this month was it released in print. And for good reason."In a nutshell, the first lady and her husband make a pact," Capt. Vercessi says, describing the novel for Inside the Beltway. "He'll be the president and serve out two terms, and in doing so, set her up to run for the presidency."Only the president messes up in the process, wouldn't you know, and in more ways than one.Brandishing proof that he's been dividing his time between his Cabinet and admiring women who want more than an Oval Office tour, the power-hungry first lady confronts her husband. Tension mounts, until the entire concept of a simple transfer of power from president to first lady goes, like the mistresses, out the window.The first lady's next plan? Turn her attention to Capitol Hill.Hmmm.Capt. Vercessi, the author of several novels and short stories, developed and co-produced "The Silver Strand," an MGM film aired on Showtime. "We the People" is available through 1stbooks.com, or can be ordered in bookstores via Ingram Book Company.

Still upset

That was Tim Russert waxing eloquently at Vigorelli Restaurant on Connecticut Avenue about his latest project the imminent release of the next Zapruder film that would prove, once and for all, that his beloved Buffalo Bills were wrongly denied a playoff victory over the Tennessee Titans.The Bills, contends the Buffalo native and Sunday morning host of NBC's "Meet the Press," got a bad call from referees in one of the wildest NFL playoff games in recent memory. Mr. Russert has even had the game's film analyzed by technological experts.Everyone knows "Buffalo was robbed," agreed Washington lobbyists Thomas J. Bulger and Kevin McCarty, both of whom stopped by to console Mr. Russert and offer to help distribute his film.

Mind the mittens

So much for the Clinton Theory of Global Warming.First President Clinton says in his recent State of the Union address that mankind is slowly being baked, and now comes a scientific warning that we'd better be stockpiling blankets and potatoes.Geologists say there is real risk that a "supervolcano" will erupt with such devastating force that it will send temperatures plunging on a hemispheric and even global scale.On top of all this, BBC News in London is reporting that one such supervolcano "overdue" for an eruption is upwind from Washington, D.C., bubbling up ever so slowly beneath the otherwise tranquil landscape of Yellowstone National Park.Yellowstone's ground has opened up roughly once every 600,000 years, experts tell us, and its last eruption was 640,000 years ago."We're getting ready for another eruption," says professor Bill McGuire of the Benfield Greig Hazard Research Centre at University College in London, pointing out that at Yellowstone "the ground surface deformation and other signs measured by satellite suggest it's still active, and on the move."Ted Nield of the Geological Society of London describes a "nuclear winter" resulting from such massive eruptions, producing "energy equivalent to an impact with a comet or an asteroid."You can try diverting an asteroid. But there is nothing at all you can do about a supervolcano," he tells BBC. "The effects could last four or five years, with crops failing and the whole ecosystem breaking down. And it is going to happen again someday."

God, Gore and Bush

More than three-quarters of voting women in this country say it's important that a political candidate believe in God, and more than two-thirds favor a reintroduction of prayer in public schools, according to a poll conducted by iVillage.com (a leading women's Internet site), "Election 2000 channel" and InterSurvey, a Web polling organization.In a departure from more traditional demographic surveys, the poll attempts to examine women's own ideologies about issues such as religious conservatism and feminism.Not surprisingly, religiously conservative women tend to support Republican George W. Bush (63 percent), while feminist women cast their lot with Democrat Al Gore (56 percent).

Honest Newt?

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich this evening will receive the Abraham Lincoln Award, presented by the Coalition on Urban Renewal & Education at the Washington Court Hotel on Capitol Hill for his efforts in passing the 1996 federal welfare reform bill.